distant one,
of ours. He used to take more delight in Mr. Carlton's society when it
was less improving than he does now, that it is become really valuable;
yet he often visits us. Miss Stanley now and then indulges me with her
company for a day or two. In these visits Lord Staunton happened to meet
her two or three times. He was enchanted with her person and manners,
and exerted every art and faculty of pleasing, which it must be owned he
possesses. Though we should both have rejoiced in an alliance with the
excellent family at the Grove, through this sweet girl, I thought it my
duty not to conceal from her the irregularity of my cousin's conduct in
one particular instance, as well as the general looseness of his
religious principles. The caution was the more necessary, as he had so
much prudence and good breeding, as to behave with general propriety
when under our roof; and he allowed me to speak to him more freely than
any other person. When I talked seriously, he sometimes laughed, always
opposed, but was never angry.

"One day he arrived quite unexpectedly when Miss Stanley was with me. He
found us in my dressing-room reading together a _Dissertation on the
power of religion to change the heart_. Dreading some levity, I strove
to hide the book, but he took it out of my hand, and glancing his eye on
the title, he said, laughing, 'This is a foolish subject enough; a _good
heart_ does not want changing, and with a _bad_ one none of _us three_
have any thing to do.' Lucilla spoke not a syllable. All the light
things he uttered, and which he meant for wit, so far from raising a
smile, increased her gravity. She listened, but with some uneasiness, to
a desultory conversation between us, in which I attempted to assert the
power of the Almighty to rectify the mind, and alter the character. Lord
Staunton treated my assertion as a wild chimera, and said, 'He was sure
I had more understanding than to adopt such a methodistical notion;'
professing at the same time a vague admiration of virtue and goodness,
which, he said, bowing to Miss Stanley, were _natural_ where they
existed at all; that a good heart did not want mending, and a bad one
could not be mended, with other similar expressions, all implying
contempt of my position, and exclusive compliment to her.

"After dinner, Lucilla stole away from a conversation, which was not
very interesting to her, and carried her book to the summer-house,
knowing that Lord Staunton lik